Much good it did us to return to the city, och we managed to help the child Jan asked us to. And in return Jan got his heart broken again. And ultimatly we where running errands for a mind flayer obiously hiding in the city. I´m not comfortable with that at all. And that fight agains those githianky... they went down fast enough but that magical sword they summoned was a different story, forced us to hide in a room and lock the door. I guess thats how paladins feel huddling up around the campfire when they find themselves out in the woods at night. And then this baron slime shows up and puts a curse on Jaheira. Lucky for this city we managed to reverse it in time, otherwise I would probably have gone all bhallspawn on the entire city. Paying off Ployers own henchmen to kill him did bring some satisfaction though. To take her mind of what had just happened I gave Jaheira a present, something every girl wants, a belt of giant strength. She seemed very happy with it, even gave me a hug. Then Minsc wouldnt leave the store if I didnt buy him that shield of Balduran, apparently Balduran is s big hero of his. Oh well maybe it will prove usefull. Helping Nalia clear her family hold felt more rewarding, even if I wasnt able to help her with that other problem she had, something about an engagement.
So Jan and Jaheira quest went smooth, and DeÁrnise keep that can have some difficult battles went pretty good. Yuan-Ti mage went down from a Backstab from Valgyar. Used Chaotic commands and killed the umberl hulks. Dont like killing the dogs for the stew. Have a 6 months old pup myself For Torgal I buffed up, Jaheira summoned 2 cave bears and a fire elemental and there was never any danger.
Did picked up some items i wantes. Celestial fury for Valgyar Staff of Rynn for Jaheira Horn of valhalla
and then decided to got for cult of the eyeless. Fought trough sewers allrigt, saved haer´Dalis while I was there. Picked up cloak of the sewers. Went down to the underground temple, and thats where this run ended. By something simple that should have easely been passed... Petrification trap before the bridge, had no idea it was there and ran right in to it, second mistake was that PC was moving first and got petrified. Game over. Will keep playing this group for aslong as I find it interesting. I obiously need to learn the game better if I am to beat it. My next set-up will be 4 custom fighters.
Petrification trap before the bridge, had no idea it was there and ran right in to it, second mistake was that PC was moving first and got petrified. Game over.
Ohh, the prismatic spray trap before the bridge. How many brave adventurers have found their end there?!
Just started Neera's quest in Wild Forest, I ran into a bunch of Hobgoblins; Neera got poisoned by arrow; almost as reflext I had Aerie cast Slow Poison on her; she got wildsurged into being Petrified AND immediately died -- nothing to resurrect; nothing to de-petrify. (Is this supposed to happen given that I use "No Gore" settings?) I continued north and there was a cutscene interaction with a bunch of Gnolls or something which promptly froze the game (I suppose they waited to speak to Neera or something).
I loathe the EE content; its subpar writing; its disproportionate rewards; its instability.
Now considering if I should skip the Neera line altogether or give it another go. (Last Save before I travel to Wild Forest.)
Thoughts?
- [NOTE: Selyna the Dragon Disciple is doing well otherwise; having veeery cautiously progressed through most of Chapter 2; avoiding tough battles such as Shadow Dragon.]
The Prismatic Spray trap is a huge problem for the early game. It's worth bringing Jan, Yoshimo, Hexxat, or Nalia into your party just to disarm it once. Otherwise, a Haste spell, Oil of Speed, or another haste effect, can let you rush over the trap fast enough to escape the area of effect. Note that the trap triggers multiple times, so if you cross it more than once, you'll have to dodge it again.
It can also be used offensively, by intentionally triggering the trap and having the slavers get hit by it.
"Elaira's" run ended pretty early. The evil party was really despised(1) and the Flaming Fist had taken this personally. The party avoided big cities until Xzar's mission triggered (npc project)
Once I traveled to the next area, some druids came to avenge the sirine's death. One of them managed to cast a Call lightning spell and guess what... Elaira was at 25hp full health and got insta-killed. Actually I was glad she died, this playthrough was really evil for me. I think I am kinda Chaotic Good by the way
Anyway the question is how did the druids manage to find "Elaira's" party so fast? The answer is that they were spotted by another party, probably the opposite in nature.. ...their leader was a Cavalier!
After the loss of my saves I started a new run. This one will be my new standard BG game and a minimal-reload run... ...But not until I die! Until then it is a no-reload I guess, so I will post my progression here.
Currently Walhand is romancing Branwen. The party has almost cleared the sword coast with the exception of some really dangerous places like Durlag's Tower. Mulahey is dead and Tranzig paid with his life for petrifying Branwen. The party is now heading to the Bandit Camp, Kivan is really anxious!
After the last sirine fell the group saw a cave in from of them. It looked bigger than any previous caves the party had found, so Imoen decided to check for traps there. It proved to be a right decision.
While searching through the cave Imoen saw three flesh beasts there, completely like Thalantyr's servants.
Aidahn buffed Imoen with the Strength spell, so that she could try backstabbing the flesh golems. But the golems were immune to a backstab.
To make things worse, the golem followed running Imoen out of the cave. Everyone was scared to go into melee with the golem. Then Dynaheir exclaimed that thanks to her Mirror Images she can hold the golem while others finish it.
Those who don't take risks don't win. But Dynaheir's spell failed her and the golem hit the real mage.
There were still Minsc, Jaheira and Khalid left fighting with the golem. It was a question of whom it would choose to attack. Jaheira followed the Dynaheir's fate. Imoen, who cursed herself for not being able to help majorly, still attacked from the shadows.
Although the golem fell, Imoen decided that she should do everything possible to prevent future deaths of others. The thought that had been in her head for a long time already, now materialized: she has to concentrate her efforts on learning magic, to be able to hold monsters instead of others. The decision was made.
After learning a lesson of not letting a golem go out of the cave, Imoen used shadows in the cave to first hit a beast and then go out of its sight hiding. Nobody else suffered that day.
After killing the last golem, Imoen reached a new level (+7 HP). It let her put 100 points into Disarming traps and 85 into Opening Locks.
After that, Imoen dualled to a mage. Both the Dynaheir's and Jaheira's deaths were in front of her eyes while she hastedly went trhough the Tarnesh's scrolls. Spook and Friends were the first spells she learned. The Friends spell, previously unused by neither Aidahn nor Dynaher, could help the party to generate some money for buying additional spells.
Mincs also got a new level (+6 HP).
In the cave, the survivors found a lot of treasure. A magical Tome, similar to the one they found near the Gnoll Fortress, and a wand of paralysis were among them.
Before returning to Beregost, the party killed several wolves that turned hostile when Khalid approached them. It gave Sparkyfibber another mage level (+1 HP). After a good rest, new items were identified. The Tome of Constitution was given to Aidahn, so that in the future he could use the Claw of Kazgaroth without losing racial bonuses that 10 CON grant him.
It was time to return the girdle the party found a long time ago to Unshey in the Friendly Arm inn, because the boots found on Nimbul basically did the same thing, and Aidahn didn't want any more delays. The lady was grateful for the girdle and presented a history book to Aidahn.
Well, Easthaven. It's become clear that carrying weight will become an issue soon, based on the strength scores. Luckily, the party had enough starting gold to buy anything we needed.
With Apsel's wolf we get our first taste of combat.
Wibbles' dart-throwing 3 APR is going to keep the party out of some holes, I hope. The party destroys the tavern bugs, helps out Jhonen and the fisherman, and then moves on to the first trial: the goblins. The first time I played IWD I got absolutely destroyed by them, and that hopefully will not prove true with this party.
With Wibbles and De'Kal buffed with Armor, we don't worry about their safety. The fight starts off well -
until Beorn takes a crit (I assume) from a goblin. Luckily, we have two healers, and he's fine. Acid takes a couple points from the marshal, but they fared well against a handful of goblins.
Into the orc cave. My greatest concern for my front liners is the disparity between strength and dexterity, as in they don't hit as much as their AC protects, making them weaker overall. Acid almost died twice in the entrance.
I wanted to rest as little as possible, to make the game more challenging, but I don't know how much I can rely upon the PCs.
The clearing battle goes off without a hitch at first, relatively. Nobody is hitting on either side. Then, bam, Beorn takes a bunch of points from the elite orc.
In a bit of poetic justice, he heals himself just as the orc drops. The fight continues well, until suddenly Wibbles is hit!
There was a second archer south! And then, before anything can be done, Wibbles is dropped, at De'Kal is wounded. This one orc was making up for the rest of them.
Wibbles is going to remain dead - for the time being, as I don't feel like running back to the temple, and he had few useful spells. The party moves on, and despite an unlucky rest spawning a couple orcs, goes on without any problems - the party is good against weak melee opponents, even without three more APR. De'Kal takes Sleep this rest (ha ha) in preparation for the upcoming ogre. We find a Ring of Lesser Resistance, and give it to Acid, his saves and overall stats being the most lackluster (it was between him and D'Ees). De'Kal runs out of throwing daggers ahead of the main drag, but hopefully that won't pose much of a problem. We Bless up before the fight, and hope for the best.
It could have been better. The double Sleep and Command whammy worked out nicely, but they couldn't withstand the ogre's prowess. We have enough gold to reanimate, so we do so (with gold to spare), and return to finish the job.
Everyone died again. But the backrow kited the ogre and picked up their equipment, waiting.
Wibbles, again, with the deathblow. The party returns to Easthaven, does a few quests, and goes to Kuldahar...
@dockaboomski: Very, very happy to see an IWD run here. And reassuring to see that I'm not the only one whose party members get slain repeatedly by the Easthaven orcs and goblins.
I can't believe you could afford so many resurrections. I recall bankrupting myself early on in a no-reload IWD:EE run (which I still haven't completed) due to multiple deaths. Be careful. Resurrection gets more and more pricy as your party gains levels. I had a lot of trouble with that, myself.
I notice you have a ranger that appears to be specializing in missile weapons. Does he use any melee weapons? Vanilla IWD grants rangers an extra melee attack per round when not using shields (this even applies to two-handed weapons) to reflect dual-wielding, and I always found this very useful.
What soundsets are you using for those characters? I ask because one of my characters uses Wibbles' portrait quite often, and always uses the "Male Fighter 5" soundset.
@semiticgod D'Ees is mixed. His player is mostly using ranged weapons, but I haven't specialized in them in game. I totally forgot about the exta APR, but he does use a few melee weapons. I lean ranged because of his high dex, but either or. Wibbles is using Male Mage 2; I'm trying to base these off of role-play personality IRL. Luckily I started with 880 gp, and sold the Winter Wolf pelt, but I barely made it the second time around, since D'Ees is an elf, he accounted for double the money. I am, indeed, playing on Core difficulty. I was going to go Insane, but I wimped out after getting the game started.
@dockaboomski: Good idea. Insane mode isn't that great. I've tried Easy, Normal, Core, and Insane, and contrary to popular belief, the double XP in Insane mode isn't actually worth the double damage. Unlike BG2, IWD is all about damage, and an extra level won't help much when you're dying twice as fast in every battle.
Elves are awful for no-reload IWD runs. That gold really builds up over time.
In the Underdark, we spend a long time fussing with the drow ambush. Cernd failed a save against Hold Person and died, while Jan, Edwin, and Aerie got charmed every so often, but Sil stayed out of the way. We brought down the mages' defenses the normal way, with debuffers rather than waiting them out, and wore down their HP with backstabs and summons. It was a very chaotic battle, but we only lost one character.
We only set the first two imprisoned critters free. I have no real reason to mess with Alchra Diagott or the others. We don't need their XP or their items. We just move on to the Myconid, hitting two of the colonies with Feeblemind and the other one with Hold Monster. I have to fix Sil again after the battle; she lost her blindness again somehow.
Cernd chimes in, breaking the silence that's ruled the party since we left Athkatla.
He might be a sophistry-spouting hippy werewolf monster, but he's actually a pretty good guy. He strikes me as the intellectual type, though he might have some blind spots in his world view. He's one of the few people, in fact, who can sense your Bhaalspawn heritage without you telling him.
The Balor poses a problem. We can't really expect to bring it down with melee force alone. None of us has particularly good THAC0, the Balor is shrouded in an Aura of Flaming Death, and it has an instant death effect on hit: 20% of killing the target on a failed save vs. death at -4. It uses opcode 55, not 13, so Death Ward can block it; it's not a vorpal strike. I didn't know that at the time, however. Also, it casts Fire Storm on the first round, and in SCS v30, that can't be interrupted.
How are we going to survive the Fire Storm? SI: Evocation on the mages, Protection from Fire on Sil, and the Ring of Fire Resistance along with the Helm of Defense on Cernd in his Greater Werewolf form. What about the instant death effect? That's what Teleport Field is for.
Of course, even Teleport Field sometimes puts the enemy in range, if only for a moment.
I move Sil out of the way, which might have helped Sil escape a single attack roll (fallible or no, Teleport Field is still devastating to melee critters like Balors).
I had hoped we wouldn't need SI: Abjuration, but I was wrong.
Thankfully, even Remove Magic can't take down Teleport Field, so we'll be safe for a while anyway.
What's the plan for killing this thing? Balors might have great saves and high MR, but they're not immune to all disablers. I don't remember which ones, though, so I've got an assortment prepared. I've been refraining from checking .cre, .spl, and .itm files lately, mostly because EE is full screen by default, which is why I don't know. Jan and Edwin hit the Balor with four Pierce Magic spells, but there's no message indicating the Balor is losing its magic resistance--that string message apparently is no longer part of the spell in this version of SCS.
We follow up with Doom and Greater Malison, followed by Feeblemind. The Balor fails its save!
Then it takes a swing at Edwin. Feeblemind had no effect. I try again, just to see, and move on to other disablers when that doesn't work. Command manages to have an impact where Feeblemind, Chaos, Blindness, and Hold Monster did not.
For the record, Balors and other demons enjoy immunity to charm, fear, poison, feeblemind, polymorph, and confusion, thanks to the RINGDEMN item. Balor are also immune to hold and web effects, since SCS grants such immunity to large, flying, and incorporeal critters.
The Balor is perfectly vulnerable, therefore, to Hold Monster. But its MR and saving throws block every casting. It does fail a save against another important disabler, however.
The Balor is in much worse shape now. Cernd capitalizes on its blindness, and makes the effect permanent.
We still have to kill it, though. And I don't know if Edwin and Jan, with their low accuracy and slow attacks, can bring it down using the Crimson Dart and Firetooth, particularly since the Balor keeps re-casting Stoneskin. I bring in Sil, who might be able to stun-lock the Balor using Celestial Fury. Demons, I know, are vulnerable to stun. I have her drink a Potion of Invulnerability and send her off to hassle the demon. I pull her back, however.
I don't know what spell that was--the incorrect string must be an installation error--but a Symbol: Stun spell, which paralyzed Aerie, reminds me that Sil's saving throws still aren't enough to block a -4 save penalty. I have her drink another Potion of Invulnerability. It's not just the vorpal effect; it's another Symbol: Stun that worries me. Aerie was holding the Staff of the Magi, which means nobody else in the party has any way to remove a stun effect.
I send Sil back in, but she gets pummeled. She can't reliably stun-lock the Balor, but the Balor can hit her very reliably, and does a lot of damage per round, especially since all of Sil's hits provoke an Aura of Flaming Death backlash. How am I supposed to stun-lock the Balor if Sil can't survive more than a few rounds of combat with it?
I bring out the Wand of Paralyzation, which uses the stun opcode, and spend a few charges.
Sil takes the Ring of Fire Resistance from Cernd to protect herself from the Aura of Flaming Death, and joins Edwin and Jan in grinding away at the Balor's hide. But even with 10 rounds of free hits, it's not enough to kill the Balor. It recovers from the stun effect and strikes back at us.
We drain more charges out of the Wand of Paralyzation, until the total is only in the 70s. The Balor's MR blocks the wand very easily. But it can't hold forever.
That's the nice thing about recharged wands. If you're really desperate, you can get a lot of mileage out of them. Pity they cost so much to recharge. We finish off the Balor for 53,000 XP and report our success to the svirfneblin leader. Now I just need to figure out how to deal with the Kuo-toa Prince's ludicrous MR and regeneration, so we can begin the drow quests without worrying about taking too long on the blood quest.
The Underdark has a lot of optional fights with excellent payoffs. But we're going to have to skip out on plenty.
There's simply no realistic way we could handle the Mind Flayers. Mind Flayers are best handled with blitzkrieg tactics to make sure you don't give them the option of eating your brains. That wouldn't work fast enough in Nightmare mode. Mind Flayers also enjoy the singularly unfair advantage of ignoring our summons' boosted stats, as Nightmare mode doesn't grant any bonuses to saving throws or INT values. Their MR will also render the scorcher loop largely useless. We will therefore have to forgo the marvelous Control Circlets and Staff of Domination.
The Demon Knights have a similar problem. Their big weapon is level drain and disablers--again, not something we can expect our summons to hold back. The Girdle of Frost Giant Strength will have to stay behind.
What about Beholders? We actually have something to work with here, if I plan it very carefully. Beholders are almost unassailable in Nightmare mode without a trump card like MR or the Shield of Balduran, which SCS Beholders like to steal from you. But the Staff of the Magi, contingencies, Potions of Invisibility, and Invisibility 10' Radius cast by a helping hand could allow us to start up the scorcher loop while maintaining our invisibility. I'll probably use the Death Ray Zorcher, just because I don't like Beholders.
Other fights could pose a problem. The individual Beholder you fight in Ust Natha isn't safe for the scorcher loop; it might hurt Phaere and Solaufein. The Mind Flayer ambush after you first meet Solaufein could also be a big problem. And if I don't talk-block Taso Kala, the Ust Natha questline is almost assuredly doomed, as it forces you to fight a large group of drow and jellies within a very short period of time.
The Egg Guards shouldn't be too hard, though. I checked their files, and apparently this time they've only got 5 and 10 base HP. We actually have a shot at killing them in time.
To the west from the main road between Beregost and Nashkel, only one area remained unvisited and unexplored. Aidahn and his friends decided to go there.
Upon arriving, the group saw Drizzt, the drow warrior they helped a week ago. Drizzt explained that when fighting gnolls he found a page from unknown volume, written in a language that the drow didn't understand.
It turned out to be a page from the Dynaheir's journal, of which she told Aidahn the time he first found her in the gnolls' pit. Drizzt offered his help in order to find the rest of the journal, and Sparkyfibber agreed to meet with him in a day, to check whether any of them succeeded in finding the journal.
When the group started their exploration of the area, a pack of gnolls appeared and instead of fighting preferred to speak. The gnolls told Aidahn that Dynaheir was hunted by "the Old One". This Old One ordered the gnolls to find and bring him "the witch" but instead of doing so they opted to warn Dynaheir. It turned out the Aidahn's love casted a special spell on her journal, so when the gnolls tried to rip it apart it fireballed, but they thought it was a religious light .
Assassins sent after the gnome himself - he could tolerate that. But someone hunting Dynaheir - it was too much. Aidahn decided that this "Old One" needed to be found and disarmed.
Not long after the start of their exploration, the party found the crazy captain from Nashkel - Brage - and his cousin, Laryssa. Imoen promised to save Brage and she did - the poor warrior asked a riddle but the answer was obvious for smart Imoen. "Death" was something she, and everyone else in the party, witnessed too much already.
The party had to retreat to the Nashkel's Temple where Nalin, a priest of Helm, offered an atonement, not a punishment, for Brage. It turned out all his insanity came from a cursed sword and the only future Brage had in this world was in serving Helm starting from that day.
Dynaheir noted that Aidahn should pay attention to this lesson about justice.
When the group returned to the place they had met Drizzt, he was there already. He recovered the Dynaheir's journal, and Aidahn was very gratuful to the drow. Maybe they could meet each other once more in the future.
Dynaheir asked the gnome for returning her journal. Now only if they could understand who this Old One was...
Anyway, not far away from the place where they met Brage, the party found a group of diggers led by Charleston, who looked to be a scholar and a historian. They offered their help and told a bounty hunter, Gallor, to go away - in Imoen's words, "pickin' a pocket was one thing, but killin' a dozen workers to steal some stupid artefact was horrible".
Unfortunately, all the workers soon were dead thanks to a strange power in the crypt. Charleston left Aidahn with a warning against anything they could find in the crypt.
But the desire of undestanding what had happened to all the workers was a good motive for taking an idol Imoen found in the crypt outside.
As soon as they went out of the crypt, they saw a doomsayer - a ghoust of a powerful fighter, murmuring something about the idol and Kozah.
Thanks to several buffing potions Khalid managed to hold this doomsayer long enough for everyone to finish it.
After group left that area, they were waylaid by a group of 4 bounty hunters. Without giving any explanation of why they were doing this the bounty hunters attacked.
Aidahn and his friends used eveything they had at their disposal: poison arrows, potions, spells and the wand of paralysis found recently.
Both Jaheira and Khalid panicked and thus made everything harder but in the end the bounty hunters were defeated.
After resting in Beregost and buying a Dagger of Venom for Jaheira (she put her 3rd level proficiency into daggers) the group went to the area of the exit from the Nashkel Mines. Upon arriving there, Aidahn was lucky to find out the story of the Dynaheir's childhood and meeting Minsc.
Okay, to Kuldahar! If anyone noticed, I'm adding a most valued thing section to these posts also. Be ready for a very short, very boring update.
Okay, so the party is ready. Hopefully they can handle goblins, even in large hordes.
Aside from a few times where the goblins' numbers seemed overwhelming, the party performed well. They can handle goblins. We more into the mill; find Glimglam's Cloak, give it to Beorn, the most lackluster in saves still.
We get a level up from Jermsy! De'Kal and Wibbles advance some more. Yay! We rest and move on to the tower and beetle caves. *gulp* Acid kills Ghereg, for RP more than XP. They don't all die this time, just get dinged up a little.
The strategy that seems to be working is elimination of ranged opponents, then melee.
This works well, initially. The cave beetles are what I'm more concerned about.
Everyone has a ranged weapon, and so ranged combat is the tactic of choice, to keep one-hit kills from occurring.
Thankfully, nobody takes any damage, even when we give up ranged because nobody is hitting. Our clerics level up, and we move on to the Great Oak!
Acid McStonershrooms, fighter 2, 20 HP, THAC0 18, AC 1, 2 deaths D'Ees Nots, ranger 2, 26 HP, THAC0 18, AC 0, 2 deaths Beorn Axehand, cleric 3, 30 HP, THAC0 20, AC 2, 2 deaths Oswall, cleric 3, 24 HP, THAC0 20, AC 4, 0 deaths De'Kal, mage 1/thief 2, 8 HP, THAC0 18, AC 2, 1 death Wibbles, illusionist 2, 8 HP, THAC0 19, AC 8, 1 death Raise cost: 800 GP MVP: De'Kal, for reliable ranged damage. Most Valued Spell: Bless, for helping our poor, terrible THAC0 clerics.
Just waiting for the Vale of Shadows...that will be bad.
We should make MVP and Most Valued Spell (or item, perhaps) sections standard for these posts. Helps highlight the stuff that really made a difference. I'm surprised about Bless, though. I always found it rather underwhelming compared to Cure Light Wounds, since it doesn't last very long and takes a whole round to cast, and there aren't many attack rolls for it to benefit at this level. But maybe it's just that the benefits are subtle.
What's wrong with the Vale of Shadows, @dockaboomski? With two clerics, you should be very well equipped to deal with undead. I normally have my cleric turn the little skeletons, and then blast the bigger critters, the ghouls and ghasts and wights and armored skeletons, with Magic Stone.
I always loved the Vale of Shadows. Very spooky and atmospheric. It suits IWD very well.
Selyna the Dragondisciple just defeated the first Lich of her career! [The Gate District]
Team: Keldorn, Jaheira, Jan, Aerie, Minsc [cruising at around 1.5M XP at end of Chapter 2]
It took about FORTY!!! extrahealing potions and two resurrect charges to withstand the onslaught. (&#$#$# Horrid Wiltings!!)
I suppose I should be grateful that the SCS Chain Contingencies don't involve multiple Horrid Wiltings, otherwise the opening round would have been the last round of the fight.
The Lich summoned ~4 Mordenkainen Swords during the fight (but no Pit Fiends like I used to remember).
Also, it seems Breach doesn't work on it?! I thought the Tweaks component took care of that?
All in all the fight took ~20-30 rounds. The Lich did run out of heavy hitter spells.
Dragon Disciple really made a difference: - I had cast about ~5 Remove Fears. - Emptied the Magic Missiles on the Mordenkainen Swords (+ from Aerie and Jan) - also extra health buffer of the DD probably saved me (Horrid Wilting really hits hard!!) - I renewed Spell Immunity:Abj about 4 times as the Lich took'em down (each is a round wasted for the Lich, while I maintain my defenses up and down more potions)
Now that I have a Daystar, I feel more comfortable tackling Vampires now.
-
(As I had little time for both playing and posting lately, please forgive the lack of details.)
@Ygramul: Normal enemies don't use Wish. I doubt EE changes that. SCS, however, will let enemy spellcasters cast Wish, and they can use it to stop time or Breach you. I haven't noticed them using any other wishes; just those two. So you won't see any liches Wish-resting or flooding the map with Horrid Wilting spells.
SCS should let Breach affect liches and rakshasas. Spell Shield/Turning/Deflection/Trap and Spell Immunity: Abjuration can still stop Breach, however.
The reason why SCS spellcasters only use one Horrid Wilting in their Chain Contingencies is because players could negate the whole attack with Protection from Magical Energy. Using only one Horrid Wilting spell allows them to set up their defenses a little better.
The Underdark is a mess. It's always the most stressful part of my no-reload runs, mostly because of the Ust Natha questline. I know I could just slay Adalon with the Death Ray Zorcher, but I really want the XP from Ust Natha. I also want to buy some stuff that's only accessible to drow (Carlig sells different items if you're in drow form). This means there are a lot of problem encounters.
One of the least of our worries is the Kuo-toa Prince. He arrives with lots of little friends, so we carpet the area with disablers and hold off the enemy with summons. Pierce Magic fails to break down the enemy mage's MGOI, because this version of SCS apparently uses an invisible critter to cast the spell.
I don't see why this was necessary, honestly. I've never had problems with the old version of Pierce Magic. Notice I'm using Insect Plague, where I normally do not. This is partly because there's an enemy priest, and priests don't have Fire Shields, which in SCS blocks insect spells, but Kuo-toa Mages also come without Fire Shields by default, making them very susceptible to insect spells.
We shy away from combat as the fight draws down, and since the enemy doesn't pursue us, we decide to rest before confronting the prince himself. It just means we have a few extra castings of some disablers. But our disabling spells make little difference. Even though we lowered the prince's MR with Pierce Magic, ultimately only our weapons could disable him. He made his saves against everything else. First flashers, then Celestial Fury.
Now we have the Kuo-toa blood. Before we can speak with Adalon, we have a drow ambush to take care of.
For some reason, the mages I normally see on the other side of the bridge don't appear. It's just the clerics and fighters. Even without the mages, we still get a brief scare, as Sil fails a save against a Drow Bolt of Stunning.
Aerie is right there, however, and cures Sil with Remove Paralysis. I decide to test the power of the scorcher loop. Is it strong enough to overcome drow MR and Nightmare mode HP?
Yes. Though not by very much.
You can see Jan has lost his Spell Turning because there's no blue-white circle under his feet. This is just the tail end of the loop.
We still have some work to do before entering Ust Natha. After clearing the southeast corner of the map of its Kuo-toa, again using a scorcher loop to save time, Jan and Sil seed the area with traps. This is where we fight the Mind Flayer ambush.
Wondrous Recall allows us to cover the entire party with Chaotic Commands spells, and Protection from Fire, courtesy of Jan (the only one who knows the spell at the moment), keeps us safe from Detonate. INT drain can still kill us, so I need to keep our AC low. Aerie switches out the Staff of the Magi for the Shield of Harmony, allowing Edwin to get some decent AC, while Sil drinks one of her many Potions of Invulnerability (she has almost 40 now). We also bring out some summons, but poor timing on my part means we don't get a bunny horde.
Imoen and Aerie cast Teleport Field, which will slow down the Mind Flayers' INT drain. It works well: we only get hit 4 times, across 4 characters, before finally wearing down the Mind Flayers with physical attacks.
I was worried about that one, but it seems that the Mind Flayers don't attack Phaere. If they did, this quest would be awfully difficult in Nightmare mode. But it makes sense that they don't, since they were trying to kidnap her, and therefore take her alive.
I progress through the Ust Natha questline, killing the Beholder with hasted summons (and keeping Sil invisible the whole time), and finally it comes time to deliver the blood. But I need time before that happens, so I drop the Kuo-toa Prince's blood outside. I think giving it to the Matron Mother is mandatory if you already have it in your inventory. Instead, I can tell her I'll go find some, which buys us time.
I don't know what happens if you choose that second option. I don't know why it's there in the first place. Who would say that, in the one place where disobedience is most likely to get you killed? Anyway, by delaying our task, we have three days' time, more than enough to seed the area near the Egg Guards with traps.
Why do we need time? Well, Jan and Sil can set 7 traps per day between the two of them, which is the most you can put in one area, but Jan is still level 15, and therefore uses the level 11 traps, which deal lingering damage. I need to kill those guards fast, which means I want all 7 traps to be like Sil's, the level 16 version, which deal a bunch of fire damage all at once.
When I deliver the blood to the Matron Mother, she's going to seal the city. If the city goes hostile during that time, the only way for me to escape is to kill the Matron Mother, a very high-level cleric with 86% magic resistance. I might be able to do that, if I hit her with the Magic Resistance spell and follow up with the scorcher loop, or if I use two of Edwin's Limited Wish spells to stop time and eat her brains in Mind Flayer form. But those are complex, dicey, and costly solutions, and I don't want to rely on them.
I give the Matron Mother the blood, but there's a major risk here. I now have to go visit Phaere, and if Taso Kala, who hangs out right in front of Phaere's quarters, speaks to me, I'm effectively doomed to fail the questline. Why? Because if you don't kill a bunch of very resilient enemies fast enough for Taso Kala, the city goes hostile. We cannot let that happen.
Our solution? Invisibility. But just in case Taso Kala sees through it, Aerie goes out with the Staff of the Magi to talk-block her first.
This is really tense for me. I'm breathing hard, my heartrate is up, and I whisper "invisibility" to myself over and over as I enter Phaere's room, to make sure that I remember to have Sil drink a Potion of Invisibility right after speaking with her. Talking to somebody breaks your invisibility, and if you go outside fully visible, Taso Kala will speak with you. Luckily, I remember.
For a no-reload run, Taso Kala is one of the most formidable enemies in the game.
On the way out, Visaj, the mage who tries to sell you the golden rope, decides to rob us of our invisibility. I panic.
I struggle to get the party away from Taso Kala, but Sil is stuck behind a kobold. I talk-block Taso Kala repeatedly to give us time to escape.
It would have been possible to escape this without using the talk-block trick, but it would have required two Potions of Invisibility. But we're not out of the woods yet. We still have to kill those Egg Guards and escape the city with the eggs.
MVP: Sil, for providing the damage output necessary to bring down the Kuo-toa Prince. Most Valuable Spell: Teleport Field, for limiting the Mind Flayers' INT drain ability.
The Egg Guards have 5 and 10 base HP, which means 95 and 110 HP in Nightmare mode. The plan is to surround them with Aerial Servants and pound them into oblivion, with Sil's backstabs and traps to speed up the process.
Before I get started, however, I must prepare for a fight with Matron Mother Ardulace, because I'll have to fight her right afterward if I don't get this just right. We need Protection from Fire on everybody but Cernd (who has item-based immunity already) to make sure we can use the scorcher loop at a moment's notice.
In planning for the Egg Guard fight, however, I make multiple mistakes in sequence. But oddly enough, those mistakes in judgment pushed me in the direction of a better, more reliable plan. Some people may find the explanation boring, but I love details about planning (there was a film about the WW2-era Operation Mincemeat that I loved precisely because of the focus on planning). So, explanation in spoilers.
Even if we're well-prepared to fight the Matron Mother, it's in our best interests to plan out the fight with the Egg Guards. I want to maximize our THAC0. Now, there's an odd bug I've noticed where a character with negative THAC0 will have his or her THAC0 set to 1 if he or she drinks a Potion of Heroism. I don't have such a potion, but a Potion of Power would have the same effect, and because Sil's THAC0 is below 0, I decide not to have her drink a Potion of Power. Instead, I give it to Cernd.
I want Cernd in the best shape he can be, so I consider having him dual-wield with Belm. He has a single point in Two-Weapon Style, and because I put Belm in the off hand instead of the main hand, his main hand THAC0 is... 10. If he doesn't dual-wield (or uses Belm in the main, which I didn't consider), it's 8.
Those guards wear Drow Adamantine Full Plate +5. Their AC is a base -4, without damage-specific modifiers, and I do the math in my head... but interpret -4 as -14, and come to the incorrect conclusion that Cernd needs to roll a critical hit to damage those guards at all.
Spooked by the realization, I check Sil's THAC0, and find that it's actually not subzero. It's 4. I do the math, and come to another incorrect conclusion (using another flawed calculation): that Sil only has a 50% chance of landing a backstab against either Egg Guard.
That is not good enough. Not even close.
In reality, Sil would have a 70% chance of landing a backstab, but my mistakes still point me in the right direction. If I had done the math right on Cernd, I might not have worried about Sil's THAC0, and I would have assumed a backstab was near-guaranteed. Without some of that bad math, I would went with my original plan, and I'd have ended up with a 30% chance of failing to land a backstab--which could have forced us to fight the Matron Mother.
Physical damage isn't reliable. I need something else. I can always use Edwin's Limited Wishes, but those are better saved for Matron Mother Ardulace, as I only get to wish for Time Stop and Shapechange once apiece.
I decide to use the scorcher loop on the Egg Guards. Aerie talk-blocks the guards, just in case, and lowers their MR with the cleric spell Magic Resistance.
Their MR goes from about 76 to 26. This will soften them up. Aerie, Jan, and Edwin put together a scorcher loop. Aerie and Jan have Invisibility 10' Radius contingencies set to go off on hit, so the scorcher loop turns them invisible in the process, as planned. It's another safeguard, just in case.
Between the scorcher loop and Sil's traps, the guards crumple.
And here's another problem. In the past, I've accidentally put the wrong eggs into the treasury. I repeat to myself to make sure I remember: Phaere's eggs go in the chamber; Solaufein's eggs go to Phaere. Aerie does the switch, breaking her invisibility in the process, and uses the Staff of the Magi to slip away from the golems.
Cernd and Imoen, who remain visible, drink a couple of Potions of Invisibility. We return to Phaere to report our success, remembering to avoid Taso Kala once more. Sil doesn't need another potion on the way out, though, as we go directly to the ritual.
Phaere isn't too happy when she finds out what we've done.
She dies along with the Matron Mother, and we are forced to flee the city. I re-cast Haste and rush to the exit. Even so, the city turns hostile before I escape.
Now, in the past, I've seen Ust Natha drow chase us out of the city, all the way across the Underdark map, so I'm wary of getting flanked on the way to Adalon. To make sure I stay away from them, I go directly to Adalon without resting.
I forgot that Adalon brings you right in front of a drow party. Aerie broke her invisibility by talking to Adalon, but I can restore it using the Staff of the Magi.
But I'm not fast enough. The drow see Aerie and attack. We get hit by a trio of area-effect spells. We can resist Chaos with saving throws, and recover from Horrid Wilting with potions, but there's one spell we can't bounce back from.
Now we're all visible, except for Aerie. We can't get through to the exit; the enemy is blocking the way. Aerie begins casting Teleport Field to scatter them. Sil drinks a Potion of Invisibility and runs to the east, to safety, while the rest of the party lingers behind, to make sure the enemy doesn't follow in Sil's direction.
A second Horrid Wilting spell hits the party.
Cernd, Jan, Edwin, and Imoen all die. Only Aerie and Sil remain. I leave Aerie behind, hoping that she can gather our dropped equipment and join Sil, who has fled to the east. But some enemies aren't fool by the Staff of the Magi.
I try to bring her aside, and hopefully get her enough space to drink a potion, but it's hopeless. The Glabrezu don't give her the chance.
Now everyone is dead but Sil. The enemy is at full strength. And if Sil goes back to gather their equipment, the Glabrezus will pounce on her. If she gets hurt badly enough, they'll hit her with PW: Stun as well, and the Potions of Freedom and Potions of Magic Protection she would need to block that spell are in Dragomir's Rest, on Cernd's body. She might not reach it in time.
Instead, I have Sil start bringing back the party. We might still scrape by if we get some buffs ready and hurry past the enemy. Adalon works on the drow, but I doubt she'll do enough to solve the problem. She never has in the past.
Jan has cast Invisibility and is acting as a lookout in case the enemy comes looking for us.
They do. Aerie starts casting Invisibility 10' Radius to save the party. Since she was further from the enemy than Jan, I assumed she'd be the safer option for the spell. But the enemy is smarter than that.
Jan could try to cast Invisibility 10' Radius himself, but with the entire party under the effects of Golem Slow, it would take two whole rounds to cast the spell. No, it's time to run. On the way, the golems trigger some traps I set for the Kuo-toa a while back.
But a little damage won't stop them. They catch up to Jan and crush him. Sil is invisible thanks to her blindness, and is able to slip away. She goes to the svirfneblin settlement to bring the party back together.
There's a problem. Sil has 5 dead party members, but only 2 charges in the Rod of Resurrection. What about the other Rod of Resurrection? With the rest of the party's stuff, guarded by a lot of very tough enemies. What about recharging the rod we still have?
We're bankrupt. When we finished shopping at Ust Natha, we only had 87 gold left. We're not much richer now, and we've barely got anything to sell. The only equipment we still have is Sil's.
To get back the party, we need to resurrect Aerie and have her memorize Raise Dead. And because she only just gained a level, and hit level 14, she can memorize three Raise Dead spells.
But we can't rest to get back their HP. If we wait too long, our equipment might disappear. And it's a lot of stuff for us to lose. The Staff of the Magi, Belm, the Robe of Vecna, Firetooth, Jan's gear, the Tuigan Bow, the Helm of Balduran, Vhailor's Helm, all our wands, the Amulet of Power, the Ring of Wizardry, Kundane, the Cloak of Mirroring, and more.
That's a lot of stuff for us to lose. We'd be absolutely crippled without it. To avoid resting a second time and risking losing our equipment, Cernd conjures his Greater Werewolf Token to regenerate his lost HP, and summons two Nymphs to cast a pair of level 20 Mass Cure spells on us. Combined with some Potions of Healing, the whole party gets back to full health.
We're unarmed and naked, but we still have our buffs. We prepare to rush past the enemies ahead.
Haste and Invisibility 10' Radius are staples of our buffs, and SI: Abjuration to block Remove Magic is a recurring spell this run, but Minor Globe of Invulnerability is completely new. Why do we need MGOI? To prevent Golem Slow. Free Action is another option, but it also blocks Haste, which we need.
To my surprise and delight, Adalon has cleared up the area.
We can pick up our equipment at our leisure. We continue past the next group of drow, still hasted and invisible, and break out onto the surface.
We get interrogated and Elhan and our sages. We've been through a lot, but we know we're put the drow through even worse.
MVP: Adalon, for clearing up the drow. Most Valuable Item: the Rod of Resurrection, for making sure we had enough room for all of our stuff.
Now, we need to raise some money to buy Ribald's level 9 scrolls. I want to get closer to epic levels, because right now we're barely scraping 2 million XP, and Suldanessellar is right around the corner. We're going to have to do some old quests. Next up is the De'Arnise Hold.
Hopefully we're not too late. Nalia's been waiting for us to arrive for five months now.
@Ygramul: Normal enemies don't use Wish. I doubt EE changes that. SCS, however, will let enemy spellcasters cast Wish, and they can use it to stop time or Breach you. I haven't noticed them using any other wishes; just those two. So you won't see any liches Wish-resting or flooding the map with Horrid Wilting spells.
SCS should let Breach affect liches and rakshasas. Spell Shield/Turning/Deflection/Trap and Spell Immunity: Abjuration can still stop Breach, however.
The reason why SCS spellcasters only use one Horrid Wilting in their Chain Contingencies is because players could negate the whole attack with Protection from Magical Energy. Using only one Horrid Wilting spell allows them to set up their defenses a little better.
Truth be told, my attack on the Lich was not well planned. I had generic defenses and generic spell memorization for everyone. Hence, the wasteful use potions to compensate. I also failed to pay attention to his spell defenses, so likely I wasted some Breaches without realizing...
This was the highest level enemy I defeated in the current run (I think Lavok isn't actually this though; also because you can disperse the party instead of fighting in close quarters).
--
Selyna is proudly playing like a coward.
Earlier on I have done Unseeing Eye, where I defeated Beholders basically by carpet bombing their area from afar and AWACSing with Jan (apparently Gauths and Beholders can't detect Invisible; I can't remember which variants do, perhaps the spell casting kind?).
Basically, I don't let any nontrivial enemy within line of sight of Selyna, if it can be helped (Lich was a first exception).
Case in point, earlier on Lavok had a trigger:
** Spell Trigger : 3 x Flesh to Stone **
... which promptly petrified Keldorn. I don't think a frontliner could have been reliably defended from that early in the game.
Also, I considered doing Firkraag after breezing his dungeon. But with triple the HP as per SCS, I doubt I have enough spell damage to take him out. So, he will wait for end game - along with most every challenging enemy.
And since ONE Lich cost me more than half my healing potions, I will not be attempting any other since I return to Athkatla.
Great news guys, Walhand Loyalar and his heroic party are still alive!
They carefully cleared the areas around the bandit camp and rested at the FAI, organizing their attack. A visit to Thalantyr, the famous mage at High Hedge, was necessary in order to buy some extra spells for Quayle and Xan. Ready to go!
At the bandit camp Alora (you know her, the best thief ever) hid in shadows and explored half the camp. Too many foes..but an attack head on was the only option. The party buffed with their basic defense, but the tall Cavalier was the one who had to take care since he would be alone at the front while the rest would stay a bit back with their missile weapons ready.
Walhand was wearing the cload of displacement + senses of the cat boots to ensure maximum AC against missile weapons. After a protection from cold/fire from his lover Branwen and due to his innate abilities, he had 110 fire resistance, 50 cold, 20 acid and 100 poison. He also coughed a stone giant strength potion. The fight started and was pretty cool. Once the alarm went off the Cavalier was fighting with 4 Hogbos, Quayle and Xan casted web and grease to cut off reinforcements which proved a great idea. Skull trap, fireballs, melee fighting, Kivan shooting his arrows...even so some enemies passed through. None the less the fight is over...
at a heavy cost though, 3 deaths...it was really good I bought raise dead scrolls
Kivan stood his ground when half the party died. He engaged in melee, got wounded but proved victorious. He had to thank Thalantyr again for his present, it really proved crucial in this fight!!
The party is currently resting at Beregost. They should head to Cloakwood Forest now, but before this they will visit the western sword coast. Some trouble with sirines have to be looked into...
It will be my first time at cloakwood forest with the improved spiders SCS option installed. I just have an idea of what I will face by the readme. Alora pickpocketed Dushai (I really like this guy with no reason ) for his ring of free action. I think the ring and the innate immunity to poison from the cavalier kit are ideal here...ah find traps also ofc. Any recommendations in order to avoid any FATAL new traps are welcome!!!
@semiticgod I love the Vale of Shadows, it's my favorite part of the game. I'm just worried that the party will get swarmed, even if the clerics are turning.
Heya Folks, here with my first attempt at this shindig, with Bronwynn the Fighter/Thief!
[Spoiler][/spoiler]
Right off, without munchkining, this was my fifth roll. Lady Luck clearly smiles on me so far; we'll see if it continues. Bronwynn here may be a Fighter/Thief, but his warrior side has yet to be discovered; only good with daggers given his time as a prospective chef, the little elf is not only -not- hardy, but his sense of wisdom has something to be desired, and beyond daggers and his agility, he has no true skills. Friends will save the young elf, no doubt.
[Spoiler] [/spoiler]
His first assassination attempt went quite well, a single stab ending to the gut ending the fight. As this small chef looked at his bloodstained arm, he realized he was not meant for this sort of thing. He promptly ran out and finished up what business he had to, before leaving Candlekeep. And after those unfortunate events, it was just Imoen and him on the road. Alone. Neither an expert fighter, really two weak thieves out against a world full of assassins and monsters.
The De'Arnise Hold was a nightmare (no pun intended). Details in spoilers to avoid cluttering the thread. This dungeon wasn't that interesting.
We relied heavily on the scorcher loop, partly out of laziness and partly out of the awareness that Troll regeneration would have made our other strategies agonizingly slow. We fried most everything we ran into, but found that the scorcher loop would often fail to finish off the Trolls. Edwin had to rush in with Minute Meteors and Sunfire to make sure the Trolls didn't get back up.
TorGal was awful. His Yuan-ti Mages took most of our attention and dragged out the battle, but failed to seriously harm anyone. We could have brought down the mages sooner, but Jan somehow failed to cast Secret Word and Pierce Magic on three separate occasions, as if the Yuan-ti Mages went invisible (which they did not). We held off the Spirit Trolls with summons, but eventually they broke through, and our party, in the Umber Hulk room, was mobbed by Spirit Trolls.
Spirit Trolls in EE apparently can't see through invisibility, but they still have their unpleasant STR drain ability, which Nightmare mode greatly strengthens by dragging out the fight. Even with multiple Teleport Fields active on the map, they managed to hit us every now and then, and the STR drain built up.
Spirit Trolls have 3 base APR, or 4 in Nightmare mode, at 13 THAC0, and they attack in large groups. They drain 1 point of Strength per hit. There's no saving throw, but magic resistance can block it. The main reason why the STR drain is so strong in Nightmare mode is because it lasts 50 rounds.
Imoen was the first to die of STR drain. Edwin and Jan followed suit. We carried no strength potions and had no strength spells, so there was nothing to be done. Also, our attempts to use the scorcher loop failed to kill TorGal.
Why? Well, spell turning effects vanish on death. The scorcher loop fizzles out if one end of it dies. That happened three times in a row.
I had Edwin cast Limited Wish to get back Jan's Protection from Fire spells, but he doesn't have the Wisdom to get that wish option, and we sold our last Potion of Insight a while ago (we've been fairly desperate for cash lately). We set up a new scorcher loop with Cernd's Protection from Fire spell, but the only way to start it was for Edwin to cast the spell, which means Edwin burned to death in the process.
And the scorcher loop, the last we could have attempted that day, failed to kill TorGal. We had to spend several minutes gathering our equipment while invisible and then flee to rest. After we got back, we torched the bejeezus out of TorGal, but three Spirit Trolls survived due to a late arrival, forcing us to turn invisible for safety's sake and restart the process. Also, Edwin died again, because his AC was too poor and STR drain has the nasty side effect of pinning characters in place when they can't remove enough equipment to slip away.
MVP: Edwin, for keeping the Spirit Trolls off our backs with Teleport Field and finishing off other big groups with his many fire spells. Most Valuable Spell: Agannazar's Scorcher, since we found a use for it without Spell Turning, but not vice versa.
We're still hundreds of thousands of XP away from epic levels. Nightmare mode alone won't get you to epic levels in a party run in Shadows of Amn; you still need to do lots of optional quests to do so.
I'll probably retire the scorcher loop after this run. Same goes for blind backstabbing, but maybe not for blind trap setting, which I haven't used to its full potential yet. Once I thoroughly experiment with a trick, I tend to stop using it--usually outright. This happened with the Wand of the Lightning trick, the Project Image summoning trick, the Project Image Chain Contingency trick, the Shocking Grasp+Polymorph Self trick, song stacking, the Nahal's Reckless Dweomer hotkey trick, the Chain Contingency hotkey trick the potion swap glitch, the Rift Device smuggling trick, Blur stacking, Armor of Faith stacking, dualing to thief from the Generic Archer kit from tactics to get area-effect STR drain, Protection from Undead, using rare scrolls via clones, dual-wielding shapeshifting tokens, and the Shapechange trick, all of which I stress-tested in various challenge runs.
There are so many ways to break this game. Infinite spells, infinite summons, infinite scrolls, invulnerability, instant death on plot-related enemies, permanent invisibility, party-wide 50 damage per hit at 10 APR, 100,000 damage with three spells... Even the console and Shadowkeeper can't do all of that.
Comments
Much good it did us to return to the city, och we managed to help the child Jan asked us to. And in return Jan got his heart broken again. And ultimatly we where running errands for a mind flayer obiously hiding in the city. I´m not comfortable with that at all.
And that fight agains those githianky... they went down fast enough but that magical sword they summoned was a different story, forced us to hide in a room and lock the door.
I guess thats how paladins feel huddling up around the campfire when they find themselves out in the woods at night.
And then this baron slime shows up and puts a curse on Jaheira. Lucky for this city we managed to reverse it in time, otherwise I would probably have gone all bhallspawn on the entire city. Paying off Ployers own henchmen to kill him did bring some satisfaction though.
To take her mind of what had just happened I gave Jaheira a present, something every girl wants, a belt of giant strength. She seemed very happy with it, even gave me a hug.
Then Minsc wouldnt leave the store if I didnt buy him that shield of Balduran, apparently Balduran is s big hero of his. Oh well maybe it will prove usefull.
Helping Nalia clear her family hold felt more rewarding, even if I wasnt able to help her with that other problem she had, something about an engagement.
So
Jan and Jaheira quest went smooth, and DeÁrnise keep that can have some difficult battles went pretty good.
Yuan-Ti mage went down from a Backstab from Valgyar.
Used Chaotic commands and killed the umberl hulks. Dont like killing the dogs for the stew. Have a 6 months old pup myself
For Torgal I buffed up, Jaheira summoned 2 cave bears and a fire elemental and there was never any danger.
@Mirage Have a
@semiticgod Who would have guessed a second level spell would inflict so much damage!
@HenkeB A steady progress. Long life to your puppy!
Did picked up some items i wantes.
Celestial fury for Valgyar
Staff of Rynn for Jaheira
Horn of valhalla
and then decided to got for cult of the eyeless.
Fought trough sewers allrigt, saved haer´Dalis while I was there.
Picked up cloak of the sewers.
Went down to the underground temple, and thats where this run ended. By something simple that should have easely been passed...
Petrification trap before the bridge, had no idea it was there and ran right in to it, second mistake was that PC was moving first and got petrified. Game over.
Will keep playing this group for aslong as I find it interesting. I obiously need to learn the game better if I am to beat it.
My next set-up will be 4 custom fighters.
Have a hug, @HenkeB !
Just started Neera's quest in Wild Forest, I ran into a bunch of Hobgoblins; Neera got poisoned by arrow; almost as reflext I had Aerie cast Slow Poison on her; she got wildsurged into being Petrified AND immediately died -- nothing to resurrect; nothing to de-petrify. (Is this supposed to happen given that I use "No Gore" settings?) I continued north and there was a cutscene interaction with a bunch of Gnolls or something which promptly froze the game (I suppose they waited to speak to Neera or something).
I loathe the EE content; its subpar writing; its disproportionate rewards; its instability.
Now considering if I should skip the Neera line altogether or give it another go. (Last Save before I travel to Wild Forest.)
Thoughts?
-
[NOTE: Selyna the Dragon Disciple is doing well otherwise; having veeery cautiously progressed through most of Chapter 2; avoiding tough battles such as Shadow Dragon.]
It can also be used offensively, by intentionally triggering the trap and having the slavers get hit by it.
Though the EE content had so far been so weak and challengeless that I may win through without casting any spells with her or anyone.
(I mean come'on the Wild Forest has Hobgoblins and Gnolls?! Really?! It should have had Nishruu, Hakeshaar, and Magic Golems!!)
The evil party was really despised(1) and the Flaming Fist had taken this personally. The party avoided big cities until Xzar's mission triggered (npc project)
Once I traveled to the next area, some druids came to avenge the sirine's death. One of them managed to cast a Call lightning spell and guess what... Elaira was at 25hp full health and got insta-killed. Actually I was glad she died, this playthrough was really evil for me. I think I am kinda Chaotic Good by the way
Anyway the question is how did the druids manage to find "Elaira's" party so fast?
The answer is that they were spotted by another party, probably the opposite in nature..
...their leader was a Cavalier!
"Walhand Loyalar" - Cavalier lvl5, 52hp (18 CON)
"Branwen" - Cleric lvl5, 30hp (15 CON)
"Alora" - Thief lvl6, 24hp (12 CON)
"Quayle" - Cleric lvl5/ Illusionist lvl4, 20hp (11 CON)
"Kivan" - Ranger lvl5, 41hp (14 CON)
"Xan" - Enchanter lvl4, 12hp (7 CON)
After the loss of my saves I started a new run. This one will be my new standard BG game and a minimal-reload run...
...But not until I die! Until then it is a no-reload I guess, so I will post my progression here.
Currently Walhand is romancing Branwen. The party has almost cleared the sword coast with the exception of some really dangerous places like Durlag's Tower. Mulahey is dead and Tranzig paid with his life for petrifying Branwen. The party is now heading to the Bandit Camp, Kivan is really anxious!
After the last sirine fell the group saw a cave in from of them. It looked bigger than any previous caves the party had found, so Imoen decided to check for traps there. It proved to be a right decision.
While searching through the cave Imoen saw three flesh beasts there, completely like Thalantyr's servants.
Aidahn buffed Imoen with the Strength spell, so that she could try backstabbing the flesh golems. But the golems were immune to a backstab.
To make things worse, the golem followed running Imoen out of the cave. Everyone was scared to go into melee with the golem. Then Dynaheir exclaimed that thanks to her Mirror Images she can hold the golem while others finish it.
Those who don't take risks don't win. But Dynaheir's spell failed her and the golem hit the real mage.
There were still Minsc, Jaheira and Khalid left fighting with the golem. It was a question of whom it would choose to attack. Jaheira followed the Dynaheir's fate. Imoen, who cursed herself for not being able to help majorly, still attacked from the shadows.
Although the golem fell, Imoen decided that she should do everything possible to prevent future deaths of others. The thought that had been in her head for a long time already, now materialized: she has to concentrate her efforts on learning magic, to be able to hold monsters instead of others. The decision was made.
After learning a lesson of not letting a golem go out of the cave, Imoen used shadows in the cave to first hit a beast and then go out of its sight hiding. Nobody else suffered that day.
After killing the last golem, Imoen reached a new level (+7 HP). It let her put 100 points into Disarming traps and 85 into Opening Locks.
After that, Imoen dualled to a mage. Both the Dynaheir's and Jaheira's deaths were in front of her eyes while she hastedly went trhough the Tarnesh's scrolls. Spook and Friends were the first spells she learned. The Friends spell, previously unused by neither Aidahn nor Dynaher, could help the party to generate some money for buying additional spells.
Mincs also got a new level (+6 HP).
In the cave, the survivors found a lot of treasure. A magical Tome, similar to the one they found near the Gnoll Fortress, and a wand of paralysis were among them.
Before returning to Beregost, the party killed several wolves that turned hostile when Khalid approached them. It gave Sparkyfibber another mage level (+1 HP). After a good rest, new items were identified. The Tome of Constitution was given to Aidahn, so that in the future he could use the Claw of Kazgaroth without losing racial bonuses that 10 CON grant him.
It was time to return the girdle the party found a long time ago to Unshey in the Friendly Arm inn, because the boots found on Nimbul basically did the same thing, and Aidahn didn't want any more delays. The lady was grateful for the girdle and presented a history book to Aidahn.
Aidahn Sparkyfibber - Cleric/Illusionist, 4/4 lvl, 28 HP (10 from FF), 0 deaths
Imoen - Thief->Mage, 6 lvl ->1 lvl, 36 HP, 1 death
Khalid - Fighter, 5 lvl, 49 HP, 1 death
Jaheira - Fighter/Druid, 4/4 lvl, 35 HP, 5 deaths
Minsc - Ranger, 5 lvl, 37 HP, 1 death
Dynaheir - Invoker, 4 lvl, 17 HP, 3 deaths
The overall price of resurrecting - 4300 gp
It's become clear that carrying weight will become an issue soon, based on the strength scores. Luckily, the party had enough starting gold to buy anything we needed.
With Apsel's wolf we get our first taste of combat.
Wibbles' dart-throwing 3 APR is going to keep the party out of some holes, I hope. The party destroys the tavern bugs, helps out Jhonen and the fisherman, and then moves on to the first trial: the goblins. The first time I played IWD I got absolutely destroyed by them, and that hopefully will not prove true with this party.
With Wibbles and De'Kal buffed with Armor, we don't worry about their safety. The fight starts off well -
until Beorn takes a crit (I assume) from a goblin. Luckily, we have two healers, and he's fine. Acid takes a couple points from the marshal, but they fared well against a handful of goblins.
Into the orc cave. My greatest concern for my front liners is the disparity between strength and dexterity, as in they don't hit as much as their AC protects, making them weaker overall. Acid almost died twice in the entrance.
I wanted to rest as little as possible, to make the game more challenging, but I don't know how much I can
rely upon the PCs.
The clearing battle goes off without a hitch at first, relatively. Nobody is hitting on either side. Then, bam, Beorn takes a bunch of points from the elite orc.
In a bit of poetic justice, he heals himself just as the orc drops. The fight continues well, until suddenly Wibbles is hit!
There was a second archer south! And then, before anything can be done, Wibbles is dropped, at De'Kal is wounded. This one orc was making up for the rest of them.
Wibbles is going to remain dead - for the time being, as I don't feel like running back to the temple, and he had few useful spells. The party moves on, and despite an unlucky rest spawning a couple orcs, goes on without any problems - the party is good against weak melee opponents, even without three more APR. De'Kal takes Sleep this rest (ha ha) in preparation for the upcoming ogre. We find a Ring of Lesser Resistance, and give it to Acid, his saves and overall stats being the most lackluster (it was between him and D'Ees). De'Kal runs out of throwing daggers ahead of the main drag, but hopefully that won't pose much of a problem. We Bless up before the fight, and hope for the best.
It could have been better. The double Sleep and Command whammy worked out nicely, but they couldn't withstand the ogre's prowess. We have enough gold to reanimate, so we do so (with gold to spare), and return to finish the job.
Everyone died again. But the backrow kited the ogre and picked up their equipment, waiting.
Wibbles, again, with the deathblow. The party returns to Easthaven, does a few quests, and goes to Kuldahar...
Stealing from @bengoshi here:
Acid McStonershrooms, fighter 2, 20 HP, THAC0 18, 2 deaths
D'Ees Nots, ranger 2, 26 HP, THAC0 15, 2 deaths
Beorn Axehand, cleric 2, 20 HP, THAC0 20, 2 deaths
Oswall, cleric 2, 16 HP, THAC0 20, 0 deaths
De'Kal, mage 1/thief 1, 5 HP, THAC0 18, 1 death
Wibbles, illusionist 1, 4 HP, THAC0 19, 1 death
Raise cost: 800 GP
MVP: Oswall, for keeping the run alive by chance.
Most Valued Item: Gold. Sweet, sweet gold.
I can't believe you could afford so many resurrections. I recall bankrupting myself early on in a no-reload IWD:EE run (which I still haven't completed) due to multiple deaths. Be careful. Resurrection gets more and more pricy as your party gains levels. I had a lot of trouble with that, myself.
I notice you have a ranger that appears to be specializing in missile weapons. Does he use any melee weapons? Vanilla IWD grants rangers an extra melee attack per round when not using shields (this even applies to two-handed weapons) to reflect dual-wielding, and I always found this very useful.
What soundsets are you using for those characters? I ask because one of my characters uses Wibbles' portrait quite often, and always uses the "Male Fighter 5" soundset.
What difficulty are you on?
Wibbles is using Male Mage 2; I'm trying to base these off of role-play personality IRL.
Luckily I started with 880 gp, and sold the Winter Wolf pelt, but I barely made it the second time around, since D'Ees is an elf, he accounted for double the money.
I am, indeed, playing on Core difficulty. I was going to go Insane, but I wimped out after getting the game started.
Elves are awful for no-reload IWD runs. That gold really builds up over time.
We only set the first two imprisoned critters free. I have no real reason to mess with Alchra Diagott or the others. We don't need their XP or their items. We just move on to the Myconid, hitting two of the colonies with Feeblemind and the other one with Hold Monster. I have to fix Sil again after the battle; she lost her blindness again somehow.
Cernd chimes in, breaking the silence that's ruled the party since we left Athkatla.
He might be a sophistry-spouting hippy werewolf monster, but he's actually a pretty good guy. He strikes me as the intellectual type, though he might have some blind spots in his world view. He's one of the few people, in fact, who can sense your Bhaalspawn heritage without you telling him.
The Balor poses a problem. We can't really expect to bring it down with melee force alone. None of us has particularly good THAC0, the Balor is shrouded in an Aura of Flaming Death, and it has an instant death effect on hit: 20% of killing the target on a failed save vs. death at -4. It uses opcode 55, not 13, so Death Ward can block it; it's not a vorpal strike. I didn't know that at the time, however. Also, it casts Fire Storm on the first round, and in SCS v30, that can't be interrupted.
How are we going to survive the Fire Storm? SI: Evocation on the mages, Protection from Fire on Sil, and the Ring of Fire Resistance along with the Helm of Defense on Cernd in his Greater Werewolf form. What about the instant death effect? That's what Teleport Field is for.
Of course, even Teleport Field sometimes puts the enemy in range, if only for a moment.
I move Sil out of the way, which might have helped Sil escape a single attack roll (fallible or no, Teleport Field is still devastating to melee critters like Balors).
I had hoped we wouldn't need SI: Abjuration, but I was wrong.
Thankfully, even Remove Magic can't take down Teleport Field, so we'll be safe for a while anyway.
What's the plan for killing this thing? Balors might have great saves and high MR, but they're not immune to all disablers. I don't remember which ones, though, so I've got an assortment prepared. I've been refraining from checking .cre, .spl, and .itm files lately, mostly because EE is full screen by default, which is why I don't know. Jan and Edwin hit the Balor with four Pierce Magic spells, but there's no message indicating the Balor is losing its magic resistance--that string message apparently is no longer part of the spell in this version of SCS.
We follow up with Doom and Greater Malison, followed by Feeblemind. The Balor fails its save!
Then it takes a swing at Edwin. Feeblemind had no effect. I try again, just to see, and move on to other disablers when that doesn't work. Command manages to have an impact where Feeblemind, Chaos, Blindness, and Hold Monster did not.
For the record, Balors and other demons enjoy immunity to charm, fear, poison, feeblemind, polymorph, and confusion, thanks to the RINGDEMN item. Balor are also immune to hold and web effects, since SCS grants such immunity to large, flying, and incorporeal critters.
The Balor is perfectly vulnerable, therefore, to Hold Monster. But its MR and saving throws block every casting. It does fail a save against another important disabler, however.
The Balor is in much worse shape now. Cernd capitalizes on its blindness, and makes the effect permanent.
We still have to kill it, though. And I don't know if Edwin and Jan, with their low accuracy and slow attacks, can bring it down using the Crimson Dart and Firetooth, particularly since the Balor keeps re-casting Stoneskin. I bring in Sil, who might be able to stun-lock the Balor using Celestial Fury. Demons, I know, are vulnerable to stun. I have her drink a Potion of Invulnerability and send her off to hassle the demon. I pull her back, however.
I don't know what spell that was--the incorrect string must be an installation error--but a Symbol: Stun spell, which paralyzed Aerie, reminds me that Sil's saving throws still aren't enough to block a -4 save penalty. I have her drink another Potion of Invulnerability. It's not just the vorpal effect; it's another Symbol: Stun that worries me. Aerie was holding the Staff of the Magi, which means nobody else in the party has any way to remove a stun effect.
I send Sil back in, but she gets pummeled. She can't reliably stun-lock the Balor, but the Balor can hit her very reliably, and does a lot of damage per round, especially since all of Sil's hits provoke an Aura of Flaming Death backlash. How am I supposed to stun-lock the Balor if Sil can't survive more than a few rounds of combat with it?
I bring out the Wand of Paralyzation, which uses the stun opcode, and spend a few charges.
Sil takes the Ring of Fire Resistance from Cernd to protect herself from the Aura of Flaming Death, and joins Edwin and Jan in grinding away at the Balor's hide. But even with 10 rounds of free hits, it's not enough to kill the Balor. It recovers from the stun effect and strikes back at us.
We drain more charges out of the Wand of Paralyzation, until the total is only in the 70s. The Balor's MR blocks the wand very easily. But it can't hold forever.
That's the nice thing about recharged wands. If you're really desperate, you can get a lot of mileage out of them. Pity they cost so much to recharge. We finish off the Balor for 53,000 XP and report our success to the svirfneblin leader. Now I just need to figure out how to deal with the Kuo-toa Prince's ludicrous MR and regeneration, so we can begin the drow quests without worrying about taking too long on the blood quest.
The Underdark has a lot of optional fights with excellent payoffs. But we're going to have to skip out on plenty.
There's simply no realistic way we could handle the Mind Flayers. Mind Flayers are best handled with blitzkrieg tactics to make sure you don't give them the option of eating your brains. That wouldn't work fast enough in Nightmare mode. Mind Flayers also enjoy the singularly unfair advantage of ignoring our summons' boosted stats, as Nightmare mode doesn't grant any bonuses to saving throws or INT values. Their MR will also render the scorcher loop largely useless. We will therefore have to forgo the marvelous Control Circlets and Staff of Domination.
The Demon Knights have a similar problem. Their big weapon is level drain and disablers--again, not something we can expect our summons to hold back. The Girdle of Frost Giant Strength will have to stay behind.
What about Beholders? We actually have something to work with here, if I plan it very carefully. Beholders are almost unassailable in Nightmare mode without a trump card like MR or the Shield of Balduran, which SCS Beholders like to steal from you. But the Staff of the Magi, contingencies, Potions of Invisibility, and Invisibility 10' Radius cast by a helping hand could allow us to start up the scorcher loop while maintaining our invisibility. I'll probably use the Death Ray Zorcher, just because I don't like Beholders.
Other fights could pose a problem. The individual Beholder you fight in Ust Natha isn't safe for the scorcher loop; it might hurt Phaere and Solaufein. The Mind Flayer ambush after you first meet Solaufein could also be a big problem. And if I don't talk-block Taso Kala, the Ust Natha questline is almost assuredly doomed, as it forces you to fight a large group of drow and jellies within a very short period of time.
The Egg Guards shouldn't be too hard, though. I checked their files, and apparently this time they've only got 5 and 10 base HP. We actually have a shot at killing them in time.
To the west from the main road between Beregost and Nashkel, only one area remained unvisited and unexplored. Aidahn and his friends decided to go there.
Upon arriving, the group saw Drizzt, the drow warrior they helped a week ago. Drizzt explained that when fighting gnolls he found a page from unknown volume, written in a language that the drow didn't understand.
It turned out to be a page from the Dynaheir's journal, of which she told Aidahn the time he first found her in the gnolls' pit. Drizzt offered his help in order to find the rest of the journal, and Sparkyfibber agreed to meet with him in a day, to check whether any of them succeeded in finding the journal.
When the group started their exploration of the area, a pack of gnolls appeared and instead of fighting preferred to speak. The gnolls told Aidahn that Dynaheir was hunted by "the Old One". This Old One ordered the gnolls to find and bring him "the witch" but instead of doing so they opted to warn Dynaheir. It turned out the Aidahn's love casted a special spell on her journal, so when the gnolls tried to rip it apart it fireballed, but they thought it was a religious light .
Assassins sent after the gnome himself - he could tolerate that. But someone hunting Dynaheir - it was too much. Aidahn decided that this "Old One" needed to be found and disarmed.
Not long after the start of their exploration, the party found the crazy captain from Nashkel - Brage - and his cousin, Laryssa. Imoen promised to save Brage and she did - the poor warrior asked a riddle but the answer was obvious for smart Imoen. "Death" was something she, and everyone else in the party, witnessed too much already.
The party had to retreat to the Nashkel's Temple where Nalin, a priest of Helm, offered an atonement, not a punishment, for Brage. It turned out all his insanity came from a cursed sword and the only future Brage had in this world was in serving Helm starting from that day.
Dynaheir noted that Aidahn should pay attention to this lesson about justice.
When the group returned to the place they had met Drizzt, he was there already. He recovered the Dynaheir's journal, and Aidahn was very gratuful to the drow. Maybe they could meet each other once more in the future.
Dynaheir asked the gnome for returning her journal. Now only if they could understand who this Old One was...
Anyway, not far away from the place where they met Brage, the party found a group of diggers led by Charleston, who looked to be a scholar and a historian. They offered their help and told a bounty hunter, Gallor, to go away - in Imoen's words, "pickin' a pocket was one thing, but killin' a dozen workers to steal some stupid artefact was horrible".
Unfortunately, all the workers soon were dead thanks to a strange power in the crypt. Charleston left Aidahn with a warning against anything they could find in the crypt.
But the desire of undestanding what had happened to all the workers was a good motive for taking an idol Imoen found in the crypt outside.
As soon as they went out of the crypt, they saw a doomsayer - a ghoust of a powerful fighter, murmuring something about the idol and Kozah.
Thanks to several buffing potions Khalid managed to hold this doomsayer long enough for everyone to finish it.
After group left that area, they were waylaid by a group of 4 bounty hunters. Without giving any explanation of why they were doing this the bounty hunters attacked.
Aidahn and his friends used eveything they had at their disposal: poison arrows, potions, spells and the wand of paralysis found recently.
Both Jaheira and Khalid panicked and thus made everything harder but in the end the bounty hunters were defeated.
After resting in Beregost and buying a Dagger of Venom for Jaheira (she put her 3rd level proficiency into daggers) the group went to the area of the exit from the Nashkel Mines. Upon arriving there, Aidahn was lucky to find out the story of the Dynaheir's childhood and meeting Minsc.
Aidahn Sparkyfibber - Cleric/Illusionist, 4/4 lvl, 28 HP (10 from FF), 0 deaths
Imoen - Thief->Mage, 6 lvl ->1 lvl, 36 HP, 1 death
Khalid - Fighter, 5 lvl, 49 HP, 1 death
Jaheira - Fighter/Druid, 4/4 lvl, 35 HP, 6 deaths
Minsc - Ranger, 5 lvl, 37 HP, 1 death
Dynaheir - Invoker, 4 lvl, 17 HP, 3 deaths
The overall price of resurrecting - 4900 gp
Okay, so the party is ready. Hopefully they can handle goblins, even in large hordes.
Aside from a few times where the goblins' numbers seemed overwhelming, the party performed well. They can handle goblins. We more into the mill; find Glimglam's Cloak, give it to Beorn, the most lackluster in saves still.
We get a level up from Jermsy! De'Kal and Wibbles advance some more. Yay! We rest and move on to the tower and beetle caves. *gulp* Acid kills Ghereg, for RP more than XP. They don't all die this time, just get dinged up a little.
The strategy that seems to be working is elimination of ranged opponents, then melee.
This works well, initially. The cave beetles are what I'm more concerned about.
Everyone has a ranged weapon, and so ranged combat is the tactic of choice, to keep one-hit kills from occurring.
Thankfully, nobody takes any damage, even when we give up ranged because nobody is hitting. Our clerics level up, and we move on to the Great Oak!
Acid McStonershrooms, fighter 2, 20 HP, THAC0 18, AC 1, 2 deaths
D'Ees Nots, ranger 2, 26 HP, THAC0 18, AC 0, 2 deaths
Beorn Axehand, cleric 3, 30 HP, THAC0 20, AC 2, 2 deaths
Oswall, cleric 3, 24 HP, THAC0 20, AC 4, 0 deaths
De'Kal, mage 1/thief 2, 8 HP, THAC0 18, AC 2, 1 death
Wibbles, illusionist 2, 8 HP, THAC0 19, AC 8, 1 death
Raise cost: 800 GP
MVP: De'Kal, for reliable ranged damage.
Most Valued Spell: Bless, for helping our poor, terrible THAC0 clerics.
Just waiting for the Vale of Shadows...that will be bad.
What's wrong with the Vale of Shadows, @dockaboomski? With two clerics, you should be very well equipped to deal with undead. I normally have my cleric turn the little skeletons, and then blast the bigger critters, the ghouls and ghasts and wights and armored skeletons, with Magic Stone.
I always loved the Vale of Shadows. Very spooky and atmospheric. It suits IWD very well.
Team:
Keldorn, Jaheira, Jan, Aerie, Minsc [cruising at around 1.5M XP at end of Chapter 2]
It took about FORTY!!! extrahealing potions and two resurrect charges to withstand the onslaught. (&#$#$# Horrid Wiltings!!)
I suppose I should be grateful that the SCS Chain Contingencies don't involve multiple Horrid Wiltings, otherwise the opening round would have been the last round of the fight.
The Lich summoned ~4 Mordenkainen Swords during the fight (but no Pit Fiends like I used to remember).
Also, it seems Breach doesn't work on it?! I thought the Tweaks component took care of that?
All in all the fight took ~20-30 rounds. The Lich did run out of heavy hitter spells.
Dragon Disciple really made a difference:
- I had cast about ~5 Remove Fears.
- Emptied the Magic Missiles on the Mordenkainen Swords (+ from Aerie and Jan)
- also extra health buffer of the DD probably saved me (Horrid Wilting really hits hard!!)
- I renewed Spell Immunity:Abj about 4 times as the Lich took'em down (each is a round wasted for the Lich, while I maintain my defenses up and down more potions)
Now that I have a Daystar, I feel more comfortable tackling Vampires now.
-
(As I had little time for both playing and posting lately, please forgive the lack of details.)
I had never seen this before.
Is this SCS? EE?
Is it scripted what the outcome of the Wish will be? Could it have been detrimental?
SCS should let Breach affect liches and rakshasas. Spell Shield/Turning/Deflection/Trap and Spell Immunity: Abjuration can still stop Breach, however.
The reason why SCS spellcasters only use one Horrid Wilting in their Chain Contingencies is because players could negate the whole attack with Protection from Magical Energy. Using only one Horrid Wilting spell allows them to set up their defenses a little better.
The Underdark is a mess. It's always the most stressful part of my no-reload runs, mostly because of the Ust Natha questline. I know I could just slay Adalon with the Death Ray Zorcher, but I really want the XP from Ust Natha. I also want to buy some stuff that's only accessible to drow (Carlig sells different items if you're in drow form). This means there are a lot of problem encounters.
One of the least of our worries is the Kuo-toa Prince. He arrives with lots of little friends, so we carpet the area with disablers and hold off the enemy with summons. Pierce Magic fails to break down the enemy mage's MGOI, because this version of SCS apparently uses an invisible critter to cast the spell.
I don't see why this was necessary, honestly. I've never had problems with the old version of Pierce Magic. Notice I'm using Insect Plague, where I normally do not. This is partly because there's an enemy priest, and priests don't have Fire Shields, which in SCS blocks insect spells, but Kuo-toa Mages also come without Fire Shields by default, making them very susceptible to insect spells.
We shy away from combat as the fight draws down, and since the enemy doesn't pursue us, we decide to rest before confronting the prince himself. It just means we have a few extra castings of some disablers. But our disabling spells make little difference. Even though we lowered the prince's MR with Pierce Magic, ultimately only our weapons could disable him. He made his saves against everything else. First flashers, then Celestial Fury.
Now we have the Kuo-toa blood. Before we can speak with Adalon, we have a drow ambush to take care of.
For some reason, the mages I normally see on the other side of the bridge don't appear. It's just the clerics and fighters. Even without the mages, we still get a brief scare, as Sil fails a save against a Drow Bolt of Stunning.
Aerie is right there, however, and cures Sil with Remove Paralysis. I decide to test the power of the scorcher loop. Is it strong enough to overcome drow MR and Nightmare mode HP?
Yes. Though not by very much.
You can see Jan has lost his Spell Turning because there's no blue-white circle under his feet. This is just the tail end of the loop.
We still have some work to do before entering Ust Natha. After clearing the southeast corner of the map of its Kuo-toa, again using a scorcher loop to save time, Jan and Sil seed the area with traps. This is where we fight the Mind Flayer ambush.
Wondrous Recall allows us to cover the entire party with Chaotic Commands spells, and Protection from Fire, courtesy of Jan (the only one who knows the spell at the moment), keeps us safe from Detonate. INT drain can still kill us, so I need to keep our AC low. Aerie switches out the Staff of the Magi for the Shield of Harmony, allowing Edwin to get some decent AC, while Sil drinks one of her many Potions of Invulnerability (she has almost 40 now). We also bring out some summons, but poor timing on my part means we don't get a bunny horde.
Imoen and Aerie cast Teleport Field, which will slow down the Mind Flayers' INT drain. It works well: we only get hit 4 times, across 4 characters, before finally wearing down the Mind Flayers with physical attacks.
I was worried about that one, but it seems that the Mind Flayers don't attack Phaere. If they did, this quest would be awfully difficult in Nightmare mode. But it makes sense that they don't, since they were trying to kidnap her, and therefore take her alive.
I progress through the Ust Natha questline, killing the Beholder with hasted summons (and keeping Sil invisible the whole time), and finally it comes time to deliver the blood. But I need time before that happens, so I drop the Kuo-toa Prince's blood outside. I think giving it to the Matron Mother is mandatory if you already have it in your inventory. Instead, I can tell her I'll go find some, which buys us time.
I don't know what happens if you choose that second option. I don't know why it's there in the first place. Who would say that, in the one place where disobedience is most likely to get you killed? Anyway, by delaying our task, we have three days' time, more than enough to seed the area near the Egg Guards with traps.
Why do we need time? Well, Jan and Sil can set 7 traps per day between the two of them, which is the most you can put in one area, but Jan is still level 15, and therefore uses the level 11 traps, which deal lingering damage. I need to kill those guards fast, which means I want all 7 traps to be like Sil's, the level 16 version, which deal a bunch of fire damage all at once.
When I deliver the blood to the Matron Mother, she's going to seal the city. If the city goes hostile during that time, the only way for me to escape is to kill the Matron Mother, a very high-level cleric with 86% magic resistance. I might be able to do that, if I hit her with the Magic Resistance spell and follow up with the scorcher loop, or if I use two of Edwin's Limited Wish spells to stop time and eat her brains in Mind Flayer form. But those are complex, dicey, and costly solutions, and I don't want to rely on them.
I give the Matron Mother the blood, but there's a major risk here. I now have to go visit Phaere, and if Taso Kala, who hangs out right in front of Phaere's quarters, speaks to me, I'm effectively doomed to fail the questline. Why? Because if you don't kill a bunch of very resilient enemies fast enough for Taso Kala, the city goes hostile. We cannot let that happen.
Our solution? Invisibility. But just in case Taso Kala sees through it, Aerie goes out with the Staff of the Magi to talk-block her first.
This is really tense for me. I'm breathing hard, my heartrate is up, and I whisper "invisibility" to myself over and over as I enter Phaere's room, to make sure that I remember to have Sil drink a Potion of Invisibility right after speaking with her. Talking to somebody breaks your invisibility, and if you go outside fully visible, Taso Kala will speak with you. Luckily, I remember.
For a no-reload run, Taso Kala is one of the most formidable enemies in the game.
On the way out, Visaj, the mage who tries to sell you the golden rope, decides to rob us of our invisibility. I panic.
I struggle to get the party away from Taso Kala, but Sil is stuck behind a kobold. I talk-block Taso Kala repeatedly to give us time to escape.
It would have been possible to escape this without using the talk-block trick, but it would have required two Potions of Invisibility. But we're not out of the woods yet. We still have to kill those Egg Guards and escape the city with the eggs.
MVP: Sil, for providing the damage output necessary to bring down the Kuo-toa Prince.
Most Valuable Spell: Teleport Field, for limiting the Mind Flayers' INT drain ability.
Before I get started, however, I must prepare for a fight with Matron Mother Ardulace, because I'll have to fight her right afterward if I don't get this just right. We need Protection from Fire on everybody but Cernd (who has item-based immunity already) to make sure we can use the scorcher loop at a moment's notice.
In planning for the Egg Guard fight, however, I make multiple mistakes in sequence. But oddly enough, those mistakes in judgment pushed me in the direction of a better, more reliable plan. Some people may find the explanation boring, but I love details about planning (there was a film about the WW2-era Operation Mincemeat that I loved precisely because of the focus on planning). So, explanation in spoilers.
Even if we're well-prepared to fight the Matron Mother, it's in our best interests to plan out the fight with the Egg Guards. I want to maximize our THAC0. Now, there's an odd bug I've noticed where a character with negative THAC0 will have his or her THAC0 set to 1 if he or she drinks a Potion of Heroism. I don't have such a potion, but a Potion of Power would have the same effect, and because Sil's THAC0 is below 0, I decide not to have her drink a Potion of Power. Instead, I give it to Cernd.
I want Cernd in the best shape he can be, so I consider having him dual-wield with Belm. He has a single point in Two-Weapon Style, and because I put Belm in the off hand instead of the main hand, his main hand THAC0 is... 10. If he doesn't dual-wield (or uses Belm in the main, which I didn't consider), it's 8.
Those guards wear Drow Adamantine Full Plate +5. Their AC is a base -4, without damage-specific modifiers, and I do the math in my head... but interpret -4 as -14, and come to the incorrect conclusion that Cernd needs to roll a critical hit to damage those guards at all.
Spooked by the realization, I check Sil's THAC0, and find that it's actually not subzero. It's 4. I do the math, and come to another incorrect conclusion (using another flawed calculation): that Sil only has a 50% chance of landing a backstab against either Egg Guard.
That is not good enough. Not even close.
In reality, Sil would have a 70% chance of landing a backstab, but my mistakes still point me in the right direction. If I had done the math right on Cernd, I might not have worried about Sil's THAC0, and I would have assumed a backstab was near-guaranteed. Without some of that bad math, I would went with my original plan, and I'd have ended up with a 30% chance of failing to land a backstab--which could have forced us to fight the Matron Mother.
Physical damage isn't reliable. I need something else. I can always use Edwin's Limited Wishes, but those are better saved for Matron Mother Ardulace, as I only get to wish for Time Stop and Shapechange once apiece.
I decide to use the scorcher loop on the Egg Guards. Aerie talk-blocks the guards, just in case, and lowers their MR with the cleric spell Magic Resistance.
Their MR goes from about 76 to 26. This will soften them up. Aerie, Jan, and Edwin put together a scorcher loop. Aerie and Jan have Invisibility 10' Radius contingencies set to go off on hit, so the scorcher loop turns them invisible in the process, as planned. It's another safeguard, just in case.
Between the scorcher loop and Sil's traps, the guards crumple.
And here's another problem. In the past, I've accidentally put the wrong eggs into the treasury. I repeat to myself to make sure I remember: Phaere's eggs go in the chamber; Solaufein's eggs go to Phaere. Aerie does the switch, breaking her invisibility in the process, and uses the Staff of the Magi to slip away from the golems.
Cernd and Imoen, who remain visible, drink a couple of Potions of Invisibility. We return to Phaere to report our success, remembering to avoid Taso Kala once more. Sil doesn't need another potion on the way out, though, as we go directly to the ritual.
Phaere isn't too happy when she finds out what we've done.
She dies along with the Matron Mother, and we are forced to flee the city. I re-cast Haste and rush to the exit. Even so, the city turns hostile before I escape.
Now, in the past, I've seen Ust Natha drow chase us out of the city, all the way across the Underdark map, so I'm wary of getting flanked on the way to Adalon. To make sure I stay away from them, I go directly to Adalon without resting.
That was a mistake.
But I'm not fast enough. The drow see Aerie and attack. We get hit by a trio of area-effect spells. We can resist Chaos with saving throws, and recover from Horrid Wilting with potions, but there's one spell we can't bounce back from.
Now we're all visible, except for Aerie. We can't get through to the exit; the enemy is blocking the way. Aerie begins casting Teleport Field to scatter them. Sil drinks a Potion of Invisibility and runs to the east, to safety, while the rest of the party lingers behind, to make sure the enemy doesn't follow in Sil's direction.
A second Horrid Wilting spell hits the party.
Cernd, Jan, Edwin, and Imoen all die. Only Aerie and Sil remain. I leave Aerie behind, hoping that she can gather our dropped equipment and join Sil, who has fled to the east. But some enemies aren't fool by the Staff of the Magi.
I try to bring her aside, and hopefully get her enough space to drink a potion, but it's hopeless. The Glabrezu don't give her the chance.
Now everyone is dead but Sil. The enemy is at full strength. And if Sil goes back to gather their equipment, the Glabrezus will pounce on her. If she gets hurt badly enough, they'll hit her with PW: Stun as well, and the Potions of Freedom and Potions of Magic Protection she would need to block that spell are in Dragomir's Rest, on Cernd's body. She might not reach it in time.
Instead, I have Sil start bringing back the party. We might still scrape by if we get some buffs ready and hurry past the enemy. Adalon works on the drow, but I doubt she'll do enough to solve the problem. She never has in the past.
Jan has cast Invisibility and is acting as a lookout in case the enemy comes looking for us.
They do. Aerie starts casting Invisibility 10' Radius to save the party. Since she was further from the enemy than Jan, I assumed she'd be the safer option for the spell. But the enemy is smarter than that.
Jan could try to cast Invisibility 10' Radius himself, but with the entire party under the effects of Golem Slow, it would take two whole rounds to cast the spell. No, it's time to run. On the way, the golems trigger some traps I set for the Kuo-toa a while back.
But a little damage won't stop them. They catch up to Jan and crush him. Sil is invisible thanks to her blindness, and is able to slip away. She goes to the svirfneblin settlement to bring the party back together.
There's a problem. Sil has 5 dead party members, but only 2 charges in the Rod of Resurrection. What about the other Rod of Resurrection? With the rest of the party's stuff, guarded by a lot of very tough enemies. What about recharging the rod we still have?
We're bankrupt. When we finished shopping at Ust Natha, we only had 87 gold left. We're not much richer now, and we've barely got anything to sell. The only equipment we still have is Sil's.
To get back the party, we need to resurrect Aerie and have her memorize Raise Dead. And because she only just gained a level, and hit level 14, she can memorize three Raise Dead spells.
But we can't rest to get back their HP. If we wait too long, our equipment might disappear. And it's a lot of stuff for us to lose. The Staff of the Magi, Belm, the Robe of Vecna, Firetooth, Jan's gear, the Tuigan Bow, the Helm of Balduran, Vhailor's Helm, all our wands, the Amulet of Power, the Ring of Wizardry, Kundane, the Cloak of Mirroring, and more.
That's a lot of stuff for us to lose. We'd be absolutely crippled without it. To avoid resting a second time and risking losing our equipment, Cernd conjures his Greater Werewolf Token to regenerate his lost HP, and summons two Nymphs to cast a pair of level 20 Mass Cure spells on us. Combined with some Potions of Healing, the whole party gets back to full health.
We're unarmed and naked, but we still have our buffs. We prepare to rush past the enemies ahead.
Haste and Invisibility 10' Radius are staples of our buffs, and SI: Abjuration to block Remove Magic is a recurring spell this run, but Minor Globe of Invulnerability is completely new. Why do we need MGOI? To prevent Golem Slow. Free Action is another option, but it also blocks Haste, which we need.
To my surprise and delight, Adalon has cleared up the area.
We can pick up our equipment at our leisure. We continue past the next group of drow, still hasted and invisible, and break out onto the surface.
We get interrogated and Elhan and our sages. We've been through a lot, but we know we're put the drow through even worse.
MVP: Adalon, for clearing up the drow.
Most Valuable Item: the Rod of Resurrection, for making sure we had enough room for all of our stuff.
Now, we need to raise some money to buy Ribald's level 9 scrolls. I want to get closer to epic levels, because right now we're barely scraping 2 million XP, and Suldanessellar is right around the corner. We're going to have to do some old quests. Next up is the De'Arnise Hold.
Hopefully we're not too late. Nalia's been waiting for us to arrive for five months now.
Truth be told, my attack on the Lich was not well planned. I had generic defenses and generic spell memorization for everyone. Hence, the wasteful use potions to compensate. I also failed to pay attention to his spell defenses, so likely I wasted some Breaches without realizing...
This was the highest level enemy I defeated in the current run (I think Lavok isn't actually this though; also because you can disperse the party instead of fighting in close quarters).
--
Selyna is proudly playing like a coward.
Earlier on I have done Unseeing Eye, where I defeated Beholders basically by carpet bombing their area from afar and AWACSing with Jan (apparently Gauths and Beholders can't detect Invisible; I can't remember which variants do, perhaps the spell casting kind?).
Basically, I don't let any nontrivial enemy within line of sight of Selyna, if it can be helped (Lich was a first exception).
Case in point, earlier on Lavok had a trigger:
** Spell Trigger : 3 x Flesh to Stone **
... which promptly petrified Keldorn. I don't think a frontliner could have been reliably defended from that early in the game.
Also, I considered doing Firkraag after breezing his dungeon. But with triple the HP as per SCS, I doubt I have enough spell damage to take him out. So, he will wait for end game - along with most every challenging enemy.
And since ONE Lich cost me more than half my healing potions, I will not be attempting any other since I return to Athkatla.
Hail to the cautiously alive.
They carefully cleared the areas around the bandit camp and rested at the FAI, organizing their attack.
A visit to Thalantyr, the famous mage at High Hedge, was necessary in order to buy some extra spells for Quayle and Xan. Ready to go!
At the bandit camp Alora (you know her, the best thief ever) hid in shadows and explored half the camp. Too many foes..but an attack head on was the only option.
The party buffed with their basic defense, but the tall Cavalier was the one who had to take care since he would be alone at the front while the rest would stay a bit back with their missile weapons ready.
Walhand was wearing the cload of displacement + senses of the cat boots to ensure maximum AC against missile weapons. After a protection from cold/fire from his lover Branwen and due to his innate abilities, he had 110 fire resistance, 50 cold, 20 acid and 100 poison. He also coughed a stone giant strength potion.
The fight started and was pretty cool. Once the alarm went off the Cavalier was fighting with 4 Hogbos, Quayle and Xan casted web and grease to cut off reinforcements which proved a great idea. Skull trap, fireballs, melee fighting, Kivan shooting his arrows...even so some enemies passed through.
None the less the fight is over...
Kivan stood his ground when half the party died. He engaged in melee, got wounded but proved victorious. He had to thank Thalantyr again for his present, it really proved crucial in this fight!!
The party is currently resting at Beregost. They should head to Cloakwood Forest now, but before this they will visit the western sword coast. Some trouble with sirines have to be looked into...
It will be my first time at cloakwood forest with the improved spiders SCS option installed. I just have an idea of what I will face by the readme. Alora pickpocketed Dushai (I really like this guy with no reason
[Spoiler]
Right off, without munchkining, this was my fifth roll. Lady Luck clearly smiles on me so far; we'll see if it continues. Bronwynn here may be a Fighter/Thief, but his warrior side has yet to be discovered; only good with daggers given his time as a prospective chef, the little elf is not only -not- hardy, but his sense of wisdom has something to be desired, and beyond daggers and his agility, he has no true skills. Friends will save the young elf, no doubt.
[Spoiler]
His first assassination attempt went quite well, a single stab ending to the gut ending the fight. As this small chef looked at his bloodstained arm, he realized he was not meant for this sort of thing. He promptly ran out and finished up what business he had to, before leaving Candlekeep. And after those unfortunate events, it was just Imoen and him on the road. Alone. Neither an expert fighter, really two weak thieves out against a world full of assassins and monsters.
[Spoiler]
The De'Arnise Hold was a nightmare (no pun intended). Details in spoilers to avoid cluttering the thread. This dungeon wasn't that interesting.
We relied heavily on the scorcher loop, partly out of laziness and partly out of the awareness that Troll regeneration would have made our other strategies agonizingly slow. We fried most everything we ran into, but found that the scorcher loop would often fail to finish off the Trolls. Edwin had to rush in with Minute Meteors and Sunfire to make sure the Trolls didn't get back up.
TorGal was awful. His Yuan-ti Mages took most of our attention and dragged out the battle, but failed to seriously harm anyone. We could have brought down the mages sooner, but Jan somehow failed to cast Secret Word and Pierce Magic on three separate occasions, as if the Yuan-ti Mages went invisible (which they did not). We held off the Spirit Trolls with summons, but eventually they broke through, and our party, in the Umber Hulk room, was mobbed by Spirit Trolls.
Spirit Trolls in EE apparently can't see through invisibility, but they still have their unpleasant STR drain ability, which Nightmare mode greatly strengthens by dragging out the fight. Even with multiple Teleport Fields active on the map, they managed to hit us every now and then, and the STR drain built up.
Spirit Trolls have 3 base APR, or 4 in Nightmare mode, at 13 THAC0, and they attack in large groups. They drain 1 point of Strength per hit. There's no saving throw, but magic resistance can block it. The main reason why the STR drain is so strong in Nightmare mode is because it lasts 50 rounds.
Imoen was the first to die of STR drain. Edwin and Jan followed suit. We carried no strength potions and had no strength spells, so there was nothing to be done. Also, our attempts to use the scorcher loop failed to kill TorGal.
Why? Well, spell turning effects vanish on death. The scorcher loop fizzles out if one end of it dies. That happened three times in a row.
I had Edwin cast Limited Wish to get back Jan's Protection from Fire spells, but he doesn't have the Wisdom to get that wish option, and we sold our last Potion of Insight a while ago (we've been fairly desperate for cash lately). We set up a new scorcher loop with Cernd's Protection from Fire spell, but the only way to start it was for Edwin to cast the spell, which means Edwin burned to death in the process.
And the scorcher loop, the last we could have attempted that day, failed to kill TorGal. We had to spend several minutes gathering our equipment while invisible and then flee to rest. After we got back, we torched the bejeezus out of TorGal, but three Spirit Trolls survived due to a late arrival, forcing us to turn invisible for safety's sake and restart the process. Also, Edwin died again, because his AC was too poor and STR drain has the nasty side effect of pinning characters in place when they can't remove enough equipment to slip away.
MVP: Edwin, for keeping the Spirit Trolls off our backs with Teleport Field and finishing off other big groups with his many fire spells.
Most Valuable Spell: Agannazar's Scorcher, since we found a use for it without Spell Turning, but not vice versa.
We're still hundreds of thousands of XP away from epic levels. Nightmare mode alone won't get you to epic levels in a party run in Shadows of Amn; you still need to do lots of optional quests to do so.
I'll probably retire the scorcher loop after this run. Same goes for blind backstabbing, but maybe not for blind trap setting, which I haven't used to its full potential yet. Once I thoroughly experiment with a trick, I tend to stop using it--usually outright. This happened with the Wand of the Lightning trick, the Project Image summoning trick, the Project Image Chain Contingency trick, the Shocking Grasp+Polymorph Self trick, song stacking, the Nahal's Reckless Dweomer hotkey trick, the Chain Contingency hotkey trick the potion swap glitch, the Rift Device smuggling trick, Blur stacking, Armor of Faith stacking, dualing to thief from the Generic Archer kit from tactics to get area-effect STR drain, Protection from Undead, using rare scrolls via clones, dual-wielding shapeshifting tokens, and the Shapechange trick, all of which I stress-tested in various challenge runs.
There are so many ways to break this game. Infinite spells, infinite summons, infinite scrolls, invulnerability, instant death on plot-related enemies, permanent invisibility, party-wide 50 damage per hit at 10 APR, 100,000 damage with three spells... Even the console and Shadowkeeper can't do all of that.